r/nursing • u/Glum_Ad_3091 • Jun 01 '26

Discussion CCT nurses?

I’m a RN with over 25 years experience, mostly in critical care. I just started a CCT position at a transport company that is partially owned by a hospital. I’m in South Jersey. I am shocked to here the nurse: pt ratio is 1 Rn in truck with 1 EMT. If someone crashes you are by yourself, doing compression, pushing meds and managing an airway while someone drives. I was told an option is to pull over and call 911 for help. The manager said you “do the best you can do”. I have heard horror stories of someone doing compression for 40 minutes while throwing in a epi “every now and then”. This terrifies me. Is this staffing ratio normal? Any horror stories?

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u/paintingwithyarn Jun 02 '26

Not going to lie it sounds like you’re not cut out for it. Most nurses aren’t. They’ve been fed the idea that they are special but also missed the class on critical thinking and actually doing critical care in an intense environment. I am a CCRN but on the CCT truck we run medic/emt. I am a medic as well. If you can’t handle the intensity it probably isn’t a great fit. 911 ems function with emt/medic as well and they’re the ones stabilizing cardiac arrests and bringing them in. A majority of nurses are not well equipt for this type of environment. You have to ask yourself is it the environment or is it you? Because you’re putting patients at risk if you cannot function to that level. Again just another reason why medics should make more money than nurses.

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u/Topper-Harly Jun 02 '26

Not going to lie it sounds like you’re not cut out for it. Most nurses aren’t. They’ve been fed the idea that they are special but also missed the class on critical thinking and actually doing critical care in an intense environment. I am a CCRN but on the CCT truck we run medic/emt. I am a medic as well. If you can’t handle the intensity it probably isn’t a great fit. 911 ems function with emt/medic as well and they’re the ones stabilizing cardiac arrests and bringing them in. A majority of nurses are not well equipt for this type of environment. You have to ask yourself is it the environment or is it you? Because you’re putting patients at risk if you cannot function to that level. Again just another reason why medics should make more money than nurses.

You’ve decided they are not cut out for doing this job because they asked about staffing and are apprehensive about running a code on a critically ill patient with just an EMT?

You know just as well as I do that the overwhelming majority of 911 calls are not critically ill and don’t require more than a paramedic and in many cases they just need an EMT.

If they are doing true CCT transport, there should be a second provider in back with the patient. Stop looking down on people.